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TRC Weekly Bulletin – w/c 4th August 2025  

TRC Weekly Bulletin – w/c 4th August 2025  

Thursday Club Night Leaders 

7th August.  Walking – Val / 5k – Jim W/ 10 min – Claire / 9 min – Chris P / 8 min –Moray/ 7 min – Paul H 

Note for 5K – Jim Williams is leading the 5k group on the 7th August. He is going to have another group specific away day, meeting at 7pm at the car park at Oldbury Power Station.  See you there. 

14th August. Walking – Val / 5k – Harriet / 10 min – Jerry C/ 9 min – Jo P / 8 min – Mel W / 7 min – Ben F 

Tea Rota   

07/08 Nick Langridge; 14/08 No one 

We need some more Members to step-up to do Tea on a Thursday – looking for cover mid August onwards. 

Marshalls needed:- 

 At the last count only 21 members had signed up to marshal the Oldbury 10 and we need at least 48.  One of the most stressful things for the organisers is to make sure that there are enough marshals in place to run the race.  So please help to take the stress off the organisers and sign up as soon as possible if you can make yourself available.  And we need the income to run our club events, give our discounts and support our charities.  See below for the link to the sign up form. 

Results:  

Park Run News 26/07:- 

Melanie Wilson was 1st female at Thornbury in 22:06 and Ashleigh Davidson was 1st female at Severn Bridge in 20:52.  Nick Williams was also 2nd overall at Severn Bridge in 17:11. 

 02/08 

Ben Bohane was first in at Thornbury in 17:27 with Natalie Bennett first female in 23:28 while Colette Jackson was first female at Oughterard (near Galway, Ireland – nice) in 24:58. 

 To make sure your results are included contact Mel Lloyd at results@thornburyrunningclub.co.uk. All results are on the members results page on the club website.  All club Park Run results are also on the Park Run Results page on the club website. 

 Reminders:.   

  • Thursday 11th Sept: TRC Closed Club Championships. More details to follow 
  • Sunday 21st September  our own Oldbury 10 Mile Race 

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  1. Oldbury 10 Mile Race 21st September  

The Oldbury 10 will be coming up sooner than you realise and we will be looking for marshals for the event, more difficult to fill with the extra distance to be covered.  If you can do the same job as you did last year that would be very useful.  You can sign up using the Google form which would be much appreciated.  You can select Yes, No, Uncertain, or I’m not sure what’s involved:- 

https://forms.gle/8c1XYUbgSqGRJEDh9  

2. Great Western Air Ambulance (GWAA) – proposed visit by TRC Members  

For the 15 or so TRC Members who expressed an interest in a visit. GWAA would like to offer them an invite-only base tour. This tour offers a unique chance to discover the lifesaving work provided. 

Attendees expect a tour of the airbase, learn about a typical day for their Critical Care Team, and potentially meet the crew and view the helicopter and critical care car up close. These events shed light on the charity’s operations, covering everything from lifesaving missions to the advanced equipment and interventions we provide.  

 GWAA are offering two alternative dates – 20th  August at 2PM or 15th  October at 2PM 

Please register yourself for one of the dates. It is up to you if you want to make a donation but as a Club we donated £2,050 recently.  

  1. Club Championship Race – Thursday 11 September. 7pm Oldbury Sailing Club 

On the 11th September we will have the Club Championship race and a Run & Rehydrate evening at Oldbury Sailing Club. We will also have a it as a Food Bank Run where you can donate food (non-perishable) to the Thornbury Food Bank. Last year we donated over 70 kilos. 

As we are holding the Club Championship later this year we are concerned about the light and so we have decided to shorten the race to a FIVE MILER – basically the Oldbury Fun Run course in reverse plus a kilometer out from the Sailing Club and a kilometer back. With a 7pm start from the Sailing Club this should be ok for the light for all the runners around the lanes with a Finish outside the Sailing Club rather than the Anchor. This also means that Car Parking is next to the Start/Finish with no long walk back to the Club! With the cooperation of the Sailing Club we will be providing a free first drink and food for all Members attending.  

Watch out for the Google Form for you to indicate whether you are intending Running or helping to Marshal on the night. Captain Moray and Chairman Arthur are organising this event so let them know if you have any questions or have any issues with the changes described above.  

  1. De 4 Daagse

Kevin Arnold took part in a major walking event in the Netherlands and has sent in a report on his experiences:- 

During the week 14th-18th July, I took a team of Army Cadets from the South West to Holland to take part in ‘De 4 Daagse’ event. 

The Nijmegan Marches are held annually in the Netherlands and are the world’s largest walking festival. The Vierdaagse ‘four-day event’ takes place in the 3rd week of July and attracts over 40,000 entrants. The British Army contingent this year was part of roughly 6000 military competitors, all living in a temporary camp built by the Dutch Logistics Brigade. Camp Heumensoord is erected in the woods outside Nijmegan over a 6-week period and contains all the elements of ‘life support’ an expeditionary forces camp would require. The camp sleeps, feeds and administers all of the visiting foreign military contingents and includes a multi-national hospital, this year headed-up by the Army Reserve Medical Regiment from Bristol. 

The event was begun in 1909 by the Dutch government to encourage sport & exercise. Each day takes in a separate different circular routes out into the surrounding towns and villages, through agricultural land, past memorials and cemeteries from WW2, and follows a 40km (25mile) route for military teams. Wearing military uniform, the teams of between 8 and 15 carry a 10kg load and must complete the distance together passing through checkpoints and designated rest stops / feeding points each 10/12km apart.  Previous military participants at the event in the 20’s and 30’s are said to have provided the planners on Operation Market Garden (‘A Bridge too Far’) with important information about the best roads and routes to the bridges across the rivers and into Germany in 1945.   

With a start time of 0420 on the first 3 days and with roughly 8 hours of walking, each day began with a breakfast of as much to eat as possible!  It was dark and the roads were quite quiet for the first hour or so but became busier as we nearer the 4 main towns which we headed towards on each of the days. The 4-day marches are surrounded by a 7-day festival which involves the whole area, with 1000’s of Dutch children, families and older people all lining the roads, partying, and picnicking, having dragged patio furniture, cool boxes, sound systems and often lounge furniture into the garden or onto the roadside. The children hand out sweets and snacks all day and offer high-5’s, the support from the public is incredible – free beer, free cake, drinking water and huge amounts of cheers. If you’ve taken part in a big city marathon, it’s a bit like that, but better – and for 8 hours each day !  Day 1 (blue day) took us north, over the River Waal. Day 2 crossed and re-crossed the Maas-Waal Kanaal to the west. Day 3 (the day of hills) went south, bounded by the River Meuse. Day 4 went west again over the kanaal and Meuse and required a start at 0320 to enable us to get to the military finish for presentation of our competitors medals, and then to rejoin to the main event route and march the final 2 miles on ‘Via Glaviolia’, to the main event finish point, covering a total of 29 miles.  

It was a brilliant experience – one which cannot properly be described.  I’ve done all kinds of mixed-terrain, multi-day, long distance running events, and this was something new to try, and was a totally different experience to anything before and far exceeded my expectation based on the description from the 3 team members that had taken part in the event previously.  
  1. Upcoming local races – don’t forget to enter as Thornbury Running Club 

04/08